Marketing in a Nutshell

When we think of marketing, the first thing that pops up in our minds are those advertisements, especially videos that we have seen in a TV or a website about a company. But the term Marketing means much more than advertising. With its limitless powers, any organization can transform into an unsurpassable giant and always stand ahead and apart from their competitors.

It doesn’t matter whether:

·         You own a petty shop to sell magazines around the corner of the street or one of the Fortune 500 Companies in Silicon Valley

·         You sell Products or Services

·         You sell your products and services once or twice a year or 24X7

·         You sell them online or through Retail shops

·         You aim at end users or large enterprises

·         You sell commodities only in a particular region or Globally

 Marketing is of at most important. It can never be ignored.

Organizations are marketing their products and services in such a way it can be mutually beneficial for both the company and the receivers, at the same time, most of them cannot even be recognized as marketing, we believe that it’s more of a Complement or free, For instance:

ü  Think about the last free eye checkup, dental checkup or health checkup you took from any hospital

ü  Think about a visit to your hometown with a company provided Backpack

ü  Think about a free shampoo packet which you received for free along with a Weekly Magazine

ü  A movie ticket you got because of the credit points you earned through your credit/debit card

What is marketing?

To put it simple, any action can be categorized under marketing if it does some or all of the following,

Ø  Attracts Customers

Ø  Increases Sales

Ø  Retains Customers

Ø  Promotes Brand visibility (awareness)

Ø  Improves Customer Relationship

Ø  Improves Company’s Reputation

Ø  Increases traffic to your Company’s Website (!!)

Ø  Improves Revenue

And as you can see, most of these points mentioned above are interdependent.

Why do we need Marketing?

Though I have mentioned the reasons above, check out the info graphics stats about marketing in 2014 below from web dam, source (http://www.webdam.com/2014-marketing-statistics-infographic/)

Types of Marketing

There are several types of marketing strategies which different industries use, find below all of them

Video Advertising

§  In TV

§  In Streaming sites like YouTube and other social media sites

§  In the Company’s own websites

Look at the Impact of Video advertising, Source: Mixpo (http://multiscreen.mixpo.com/videoblog/post/mixpo.co/VideoAdQuality)

Audio Advertising

§  In Radios (FMs) and other sites such as Sound Clouds

Banners and Flux Boards

Pamphlets and Flyers

Images and New Letters

§  In Newspapers and Magazines

A new and now becoming the most important type of advertising is Content Marketing.

It’s very rare or never have you seen a video advertisement about an IT Organization, almost all the IT firms in the world do this Content Marketing, and there are several types such as

Content Marketing

§  Online Presentations

§  Brochures

§  Case Studies

§  White Papers

§  In-Person Events

§  Blogs

§  E-News Letters

§  Articles

§  Social Media

As you can see these are very important nowadays, let me explain about them a little bit,

Online Presentations:

Advertisers prepare a power point presentation and uploads it in general websites such as “Slideshare.net” so that others get to know their competency in that particular subject.

Brochures

Every Company will have multiple Brochures available in their company websites and in other social media sites, some brochures talk about all of their services as an overview and they will also have specific brochure for each and every service they provide

Case Studies

Case Studies are excellent way to show off the accomplishments of a particular company, the general structure of a case study comprises of description of a problem, solution offered by this company to solve the problem and the methodology used. It’s like an interior designing company having a catalogue which is a collection of their previous projects.

If the customer is satisfied with any of the solutions provided to some of the previous customers who faced the same problem, current customer also can demand the same solution.

White Papers

This is a bit tricky, I would say this is a combination of a Case Study and a Brochure. White papers will explain the problem in depth, various solutions available for the problem, pros and cons of each and every problem, along with how a company chooses and applies a particular solution to any problem and the factors they consider while doing so.

Unlike Case studies, which explains a specific solution to a problem, white papers give a broad spectrum of choices to the customer and as every components of any problem is explained in detail, it is a best way to establish the proficiency of the service providing company about any subject.

In Person Events

This involves physical presence of the advertiser himself or someone from his organization. It can be a general meeting, free workshop on a particular topic or a live on-stage presentation.

Blogs and Articles

Blogging becomes a new and useful hobby for most of them out there in the Internet world. It’s a simple yet an efficient way to share knowledge. It can be created for any purpose, entertainment, share information, attract customers or for any of the above mentioned advertising strategy.

Normally blogs will have articles on different topics, categorized for intended usage.

Who does it?

There are millions of Ad creating as well as distributing companies out there, the way they advertise becomes innovative. The amount of advertisement increases day by day and so does the price for advertising.

But for Content writing, as it requires subject matter knowledge as well, most of the companies hires professionals internally to do so or they assign a freelancer to do that.

If you are a good writer who the capability to understand complex technologies and explain it in simple English, you are a perfect fit for Content Marketing.

Feel free to leave comments.

P.S: none of the images above are created by me, credits go to the respective creators.